Martin Luther King, Junior, Elementary Honors its Namesake
The students and staff at Martin Luther King Elementary School took time on January 29 to honor the late civil rights leader with a special assembly. The theme of the 2008 special assembly was “Strong Enough for Peace.” This annual assembly is the most popular and well-attended event on the King school calendar.
Students and members of the public packed the school’s gym as students from all grades sang, read speeches, and performed dance numbers highlighting King’s life and what he stood for. Many children read excerpts from King’s speeches highlighting his grand themes of war, peace, and love.
“The kids demonstrate what they’ve been learning about, and they always get excited (about the special assembly),” said Principal Dr. Jennifer Ivory-Tatum. She continued, “Every year I want the kids to learn something new about him. When I first came to King school (three years ago) it was interesting. If you asked kids who he was, they’d all say, ‘he was a nice man,’ or ‘he had a dream,’ but they couldn’t really tell you anything about him, and that really bothered me as an educator and as the leader of this school.” So, Dr. Ivory-Tatum says learning about Martin Luther King, Junior, is now a year-around activity.
Dr. Ivory-Tatum says teachers really make it a point to highlight King’s character and how students can apply those positive character traits to their own lives. Each morning the school observes a moment of silence and students are encouraged to think about Dr. King’s ideals and how best they can live by them. Ivory-Tatum says, “They (students) think, ‘he’s a big ominous person that I could never be like,’ and we want them to see that he started as child (just like them).”